


Last Rites

by downtheroadandupthehill



Series: Hell, Paved with Priests' Skulls [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, monastery AU, warning for depiction of major illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could content himself with this, he considers. A shadow, a shade, that disappears in the sometimes-light of the sun. It is a way to persist in something called an existence, aided by swigs of consecrated wine. He makes himself continue to work on the library’s manuscripts. and that is something, too, he supposes. Most nights he goes to sleep with paint in his hair, and recalls the smudges of red and blue he’d last left along Enjolras’s thighs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Rites

Now it is his turn to stop seeking out Enjolras. When he enters a room Grantaire will leave it, and if any of their brothers notice, they stay silent on the matter, likely assuming it is because of some sort of theological dispute between the two, and best to keep quiet to avoid further conflict. Grantaire haunts the monastery like a ghost, seeking out back halls and corners of closets where he can breathe without Enjolras there _looking_ at him with blazing blue eyes, the Archangel Gabriel, brilliant and cold.

_Blessed art thou_ , Grantaire thinks, and twists his lips into a smirk to stop himself from crying.

He could content himself with this, he considers. A shadow, a shade, that disappears in the sometimes-light of the sun. It is a way to persist in something called an existence, aided by swigs of consecrated wine. He makes himself continue to work on the library’s manuscripts. and that is something, too, he supposes. Most nights he goes to sleep with paint in his hair, and recalls the smudges of red and blue he’d last left along Enjolras’s thighs.

(If they lived in another time, another place--the Athens of two thousand years ago--things might be different--but they would be sinners all the same, and heathens, and they would burn all the same.)

And then there is no more waiting for hell, when pestilence reaches the village.

.....

It’s Musichetta who warns them, the not-so-secret mistress that Brother Joly and Brother Bossuet share. She lives at the edge of the village, works with herbs and other plants, but she stays away from the monastery--she waits for her boys to slink away to her, when they can, but she is here now, pale and pretty and short of breath from her dash there. The middle of vespers, with Grantaire in rare attendance, as he listens to his brothers sing. Enjolras does not have the most beautiful of voices, but he enunciates the Latin words with vigor. 

Grantaire is slumped in a pew in the rear of the chapel, head bowed as if praying--even though he is not--and he sees her first.

The others turn their heads, too, to stare, and Brother Joly and Brother Bossuet exchange embarrassed looks and shrug at one another. Bossuet starts toward her, probably hoping that the strict Prior does not notice anything too amiss between them. But then it doesn’t matter, because Musichetta is speaking, and speaking forcefully despite her pallor. 

“Plague--two dead already.” 

Words echo on stone walls across the span of silence.

She opens her mouth to say more, then closes it, and no one blames her, because their terror is already rising, and no one knows what else can be said. Plague is _death_ , and there is so little to be done.

Bossuet puts his hands on her shoulders, tries not to appear too shaken, as he speaks to her in an undertone. Grantaire cannot make out the words, but he’s likely telling her to leave while she can. Go somewhere, anywhere but here, where she will be safer from its reach. The red of her hair shines in the grey and the dim of the chapel, bright against Bossuet’s dark tunic as he embraces her in a farewell and _stay well, love_ that Grantaire cannot hear but he can see and feel all the same.

No one has moved, although Joly has gone white and rigid. Musichetta seems to know better than to move closer to him, and she can only give him a sad smile as she retreats--the message delivered, and she can only leave them to their panic. She is young and without family, and it should not be difficult for her to leave for awhile and head north or south, whatever direction is opposite that of the way the plague is moving. The monks have no such luxury, and Grantaire feels terribly sad for Musichetta, who must leave her lovers to an uncertain fate.

He wants to wish her luck, tell her that God will be with her and she may outrun contamination yet, but the words are caught in his throat and she is gone.

There is a bustle around him that Grantaire cannot focus on entirely, and the chapel at vespers is hardly a proper time and place for it, but it happens nonetheless. The Abbot takes charge before the Prior can, and begins to dole out duties in the face of bleak disaster. 

For a moment, they consider opening the monastery freely as a makeshift hospital--a place for the victims to come and to die in peace. But the place would have to be burned to the ground, after the pestilence had passed, and it is easier, perhaps, to do otherwise.

Brothers Combeferre, Bahorel, and-- _oh--_ Enjolras were stricken in their youth, and lived, and they will tend to the village. Monks may not give last rites, not usually, but the Abbot cares more for his flock than the laws of the Church--and during the last outbreak, ten years ago, the Pope had made an emergency decree that allowed even _nuns_ to give last rites, and that rule may still apply. Brother Feuilly intends to go with them, and puts himself at immense risk in doing so. Grantaire is not so _good_ as the rest of them, although it is not the plague that he fears most. Meanwhile, Jehan and Courfeyrac will try their best to keep the monastery running as everything else around them falls apart--provide a sanctuary, a quiet place for those who lose their loved ones--and there will be so many. Joly will be too panicked to be of any actual aid, they quickly realize, and Bossuet will stay behind to keep him in some semblance of calm. 

No one asks Grantaire what he will do--they probably only hope he will stay out of the way--and he does not volunteer otherwise.

Joly pulls his cowl over his mouth and nose and tries to hold his breath as he scurries to his room, and Bossuet follows close behind. The remaining brothers talk amongst themselves and file out. It is late now, but they will have no rest tonight, for the black death will not wait until dawn to strike.

Enjolras does not glance at him as he passes, and Grantaire does not need to stare up at Enjolras to know that his expression is one of stony determination. Ice, marble, and scorching flame. In crisis and in conflict, his golden angel soars.

They do not look at one another, and Grantaire prefers that sort of simplicity.

He is alone, then, and the chapel seems too wide and too empty. The Abbot had put out all of the candles, save for the one nearest Grantaire, and he somehow finds himself on his knees. The floor is cold and hard beneath him, and already his knees begin to ache. His hands fold themselves together, the gesture automatic if rarely sincere.

He’s not in the habit of praying, although he prays now. For his brothers and for kind Musichetta, and for everyone in the village whose names he has never tried to learn.

(Enjolras is mightier than the rest--he has no need of prayers. Grantaire murmurs one for him, nonetheless.)

Grantaire tries to speak to a God he cannot see or hear or even feel, and true to form, God does not provide an answer. That stopped bothering Grantaire a long time ago.

_It was worth some small amount of effort_ , he supposes, and tries to stand. His legs are sore and his head is pounding from squinting in the dark, and so he barely makes it to his feet. One hand drags along the wall for support as he heaves himself to his room. The rough stone leaves scratches across his knuckles.

He does not undress before collapsing on his bed--his robe is warm, and that is pleasant enough. Even so, goosebumps raise to life along his limbs, and the pain in his skull continues to pulse into the rest of his bones.

That night, Grantaire laughs himself to restless sleep. It's a bitter, ringing sound, and hurts his ears.

.....

He wakes before dawn, for the first time in his life. The ache in his limbs and his head has only worsened, and he’s drenched his tunic in a layer of sweat. He is too hot and too cold all at once and the _pain_ in his body is enough to make him scream. He grits his teeth and tries to stagger upright--he’d like to lay in bed and let it take him as it will, eventually, but his room is too close to that of his brothers, his _friends_ , and he needs to warn them of the danger he carries amongst them.

They are healthy, and he has been sickly for months--despite how he protested Enjolras’s concern--and he hopes that will save them from the death taking root within him. There’s a lump underneath his left arm that throbs with the slightest hint of movement and any doubt Grantaire may have had about his state slips away.

Voices ring in his head, through the fever, and he remembers the priests from his childhood who warned that plague was punishment from God for the worst of sinners.

(And he only has himself to blame, doesn’t he? His sins are too many to count, and corrupting an angel perhaps the worst of all.)

The weight of it is too heavy to bear.

When he collapses in his doorway, Brother Joly’s shrieks do not bring him back to consciousness.

.....

Grantaire’s body, limp and damp, is brought to the infirmary when Enjolras and the others return--Joly would not let any of the others touch him for fear of contamination, but Enjolras, Combeferre, and Bahorel are considered safe from it, having survived the illness once before. Bahorel is the one to carry him there, Grantaire’s head lolling upon his shoulder, while Combeferre clutches the sobbing Jehan close to his chest. He cries for Grantaire and for all of them, because his friends appear as though they have been through hell and back, while Grantaire is only just arriving there.

They look to Enjolras, then, their leader--as monks they are meant to be equals, but they understand otherwise, when he takes charge on instinct. But now he is at a loss himself, while the smell of smoke and blood and death clings to his robe, and underneath it to his skin. They’ve had to burn countless bodies already, and they know Grantaire will likely be another. When his fingertips begin to blacken with rot, all will be lost.

But Enjolras has his belief in God, in salvation to embrace--they all do, but Enjolras the most.

“I will look after Brother Grantaire,” he says, voice tight and hard. He needs to sleep but some things are more important. “Brother Combeferre and Brother Bahorel--you may return to the village, or rest if you will. Brother Feuilly has already taken to his bed, and he needs his health more than the rest of us, out in the thick of it when it might take him at any moment.” He swallows, and looks around at his brothers.

“What will you do?” Combeferre asks.

Enjolras sighs, runs a hand through his hair. It’s all in dirty tangles, just like the rest of him is. “What can any of us do? But he should not be alone.”

The rest of them murmur in agreement as Enjolras shoulders past them into the infirmary and closes the door behind him.

Grantaire on the bed is like no Grantaire that Enjolras has known, melancholy and smirking and eyes darkened with want. This Grantaire is halfway to becoming a corpse--eyes closed, every breath a gasping rattle that clutches close with talons onto Enjolras’s own insides. It’s tougher work than it’s ever been before, divesting Grantaire of his clothing, but Enjolras manages it somehow. His flesh sears at every touch, hot _hot_ with fever, and every once in a while he groans or mumbles something incoherent.

Enjolras wonders what sort of nightmares haunt him now, in these depths of agony.

Per his instruction, Courfeyrac has left a porcelain bowl of warm water outside the infirmary door, and Enjolras brings it in to Grantaire’s bedside. He wipes his shaking body down with a damp cloth, to try and wash away the scent of death, though Enjolras is unsure who reeks the worst of it--himself or the sick man in front of him. He is thin--too thin, all angles and narrow lines and bones that jut out too sharply and Enjolras should have noticed it before. 

(Maybe he did and he stayed silent.)

The tumor underneath Grantaire’s arm begins to leak an alarming mixture of blood and pus--yellow and crimson and smelling of decay and Enjolras cleans that, too, until he needs to fetch another clean cloth for the task. The first is too soaked in it to continue. There’s another swelling, he finds, in the juncture between Grantaire’s neck and shoulder--Enjolras remembers and tries not to, the time he let his teeth and tongue sink in there--but it has yet to turn black and burst. Enjolras tries to see that as a good sign.

When there is nothing more to do--no way to make Grantaire more comfortable--Enjolras begins to pray. God may not whisper directly into his ear, but he is convinced that he will hear him, and perhaps oblige him of this one, small thing. He should pray for the others, for the dying he witnessed down in the village, but he catches himself when only one name escapes him in a whisper, over and over again.

He pulls a clean, wool blanket over Grantaire, and sits beside him. Grantaire’s hair is wet with sweat and warm water, and Enjolras brushes it away from his forehead, over and over again, finding some small comfort in the motion itself. He takes his hand, and it’s colder than before, though when he swipes his thumb along Grantaire’s risk, there is the faintest bit of pulse to grant him hope.

Enjolras clings to prayer, now.

 


End file.
